Stepan Parunashvili

Crazy Ideas

Note: This piece is specifically directed to people who work at mid-large companies. The ideas will still apply to you if you work at smaller companies, but they’ll come as less of a surprise.

At any point in time at a company, you can find a bunch of ideas to make things better.

Advice on starting out

From time to time newly graduated hackers ask me: “Do you have any advice for beginning my career?”

I’ve found myself repeating 3 principles over and over again. On reflection, I realized these principles apply more broadly. I think they might answer the question…

Macros by Example

I was in a conversation recently about the power of macros, and the use of syntactic abstraction in building simpler systems.

We quickly realized though: it’s tough to convey in a conversation what’s so special about macros. What can you do with macros that you couldn’t…

Two stories I share with my nephews, to help them take risks and follow their curiosity

Story 1: The Dice

I ask them:

Imagine there’s a game of dice. If you roll any number but 5, you give me one dollar. But, if you…

How to get those 9s: on improving service uptime

What do you do when you inherit, or just as commonly, create, a service with low reliability?

Improving reliability can be daunting. You have low visibility into the system, and sometimes, if you inherited it, low…

On leadership, self-esteem, and confidence

Joe and I have a bit of a reputation. We’re known to have a high level of self-esteem — so much so that we’ve been asked “how do we do it?” quite a few times.

My strategy for wealth and personal finance

A few friends recently asked me for personal finance advice. I ended up creating a list of principles, and thought I would share it with you here.

Before you get started, a few notes;

10 Offers, 100 Days. The Journey

In November I kicked off a job search that lasted 100 days. I went…